Poltical Culture

March 22, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

Keith Humphreys (here) comments on the reactions of the British to Margaret Thatcher’s dementia, first made public in 2008.
When [Ronald Reagan] was revealed to have Alzheimer’s disease, many people who voted against him voiced sincere sympathy for what he and his family were going through. In contrast . . . if Ms. Thatcher’s own dementia is generating sympathy in Brits who hated her policies, they are doing a frightfully good job of hiding it. I don’t even hear much sympathy from people who did vote for her.
Matt Yglesias (here) explains this with some electoral data. Thatcher was never the preference of the majority of voters. Her election wins were all minority: “a three way election in 1979 with 44 percent of the vote. In 1983 her support slipped slightly to more like 43 percent. In 1987 she won again, but her support further dropped to around 42 percent.”

Matt concludes,
the ability of a prime minister to wield extraordinary power based on a parliamentary majority obtained with an electoral minority seems likely to engender a lot of bitterness.
Political culture may also have something to do with it. In the US, the President is also the symbolic head of the nation. In the UK, that function belongs to the Queen. The President, even after he leaves office, is still addressed as Mr. President. The Prime Minister is just a politician. (See an earlier post on this here.)

Matt’s post, especially that last comment, took me back to a personal incident that suggests other differences in political cultures. In August of 2005, we rented a flat in London – Vauxhall, just south of the river – for a few days. The woman we rented from met us at Victoria station in her Toyota and gave us a motor tour of London before taking us to the flat. (She had been in the travel business and was now retired, which is why she could rent out her flat while she removed to a family house in Sussex.) “There’s no Brits in London any more,” she said pointing to the pedestrians as we passed. And indeed, there were many who looked to be Asian, Arab, or African. She also complained about the “queers” in her neighborhood.

In the US, a person who talked like that would surely have voted for Bush and other Republicans. So I quickly pegged her as a hardline Thatcherite Conservative. But as we drove through Westminster, she slowed a bit and pointed up at a bronze statue.

“That’s Oliver Cromwell,” she said, “the only dictator Britain’s ever had. Except for Maggie Thatcher.”

3 comments:

brandsinger said...

FROM YOUR BLOG: “There’s no Brits in London any more,” she said pointing to the pedestrians as we passed. And indeed, there were many who looked to be Asian, Arab, or African. She also complained about the “queers” in her neighborhood. In the US, a person who talked like that would surely have voted for Bush and other Republicans.

Jay - I don't understand why you persist in using this blog as an opportunity to smear Republicans and conservatives. What's the deal? are Republicans automatically bigots in your book as opposed to rational, open-minded Democrats? Is your academic setting so cozily Democratic that you are not embarrassed so casually broadcasting your own prejudices? Were the majority of Americans who voted for Bush in 04 all bigots? I don't get it. It's so flagrant and unnecessary.

Jay Livingston said...

“Were the majority of Americans who voted for Bush in 04 all bigots?” You’re percentaging on the dependent variable (i.e., you got it ass backwards). I was assuming party given the anti-gay, anti-immigrant sentiment, not the other way round. The question is not what percent of Bush voters are bigots. The question is what percent of bigots were Bush voters.

The post, as the title says, was about political culture. My point was that in different political cultures, these issues may cluster differently. Maybe in the UK, anti-gay, anti-immigrant attitudes correlate with pro-Labour voting. (I offered only one bit of anecdotal evidence. Maybe there’s no correlation; or maybe these correlate with pro-Tory voting. I don’t know.) But in the US, I would be very sure that they go with GOP (or now Tea Party) voting.

You disagree?

Suppose you heard someone in the US complaining that there were no more real Americans in their home town and complaining that the queers were taking over their neighborhood. And suppose you had to make a guess as to who that person voted for in the 2004 Presidential election. Would you flip a coin Bush/Kerry? Or would you think you’d improve your odds by guessing GOP?

If you’d just as soon flip the coin, how about a penny bet? We'll take all the anti-gay people (defined as those who freely "queer" and "faggot," or if you prefer, those who oppose gay marriage). I'll give you a penny for every anti-gay-marriage person who voted for Kerry in 2004. You give me a penny for every one who voted Bush. If attitude towards gay marriage is unrelated to GOP voting, it’ll be a wash. Do we have a bet? (There’s some phrase about mouth and money – I can’t quite recall it.)

I’ll save you the trouble. If we take the GSS as a guide, anti-gay-marriage voters went about 2-1 for Bush. You’d wind up giving me two pennies for every penny I gave you. Let’s see – about 60 million voters who oppose gay marriage, I give you 20 million pennies, you give me 40 million. I think that works out to you owe me $200,000. A certified check will be fine.

(I’ll make the same offer substituting those who support or oppose the Arizona immigration law for those who support or oppose gay marriage.)

Jay Livingston said...

I fail to see how my assertions are slanderous. Nor are they erroneous.

What I said was that in the US, people who oppose gay rights and who favor harsh immigration laws are much more likely to vote Republican than to vote Democratic. Further, the more vociferous the position on these issues (“strongly agree” rather than “moderately agree”), the higher the percent voting GOP.

I don’t know of systematic studies of “disliking or demeaning” gays. Perhaps when you go far out on that dimension, the trend reverses, and you get more of them voting Democratic. But I very much doubt it. In fact, I would bet a lot of pennies that among the more extreme anti-gay people (the dislike and demean crowd), the Repubican/Democratic ratio is even higher. If you know of any body of data to the contrary, please provide it.